Buried secrets: Confession, but no charges

Dec. 2, 2007

File photo/The Clarion Ledger

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Two days after the disappearance of three civil rights workers, FBI agents found the trio’s burned-out station wagon in a swamp 13 miles northwest of Philadelphia. This never-published photo shows the inside of the vehicle. / Photo from FBI files/Special to The Clarion-Ledger

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Billy Wayne Posey has admitted he was with the Klansmen who chased, kidnapped, shot and buried three civil rights workers in Neshoba County in the summer of 1964.

But the state can't use his confession and never charged him in the killings.

The Clarion-Ledger has obtained a copy of his statement and nearly 40,000 pages of mostly sealed federal and state documents.

These documents include the entire FBI file in the June 21, 1964, killings of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner and the state's most recent investigation, which ended with the 2005 conviction of Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen.

The Clarion-Ledger's analysis of those files uncovered sealed confessions by Posey and then-Deputy Cecil Price, documents detailing how a defense lawyer leaked information to the FBI, documents revealing who broke the Klan's code of silence in telling where the bodies were buried, and documents pointing to potential new witnesses.

The trio's disappearance drew international attention and led to one of the FBI's most massive investigations, ending Aug. 4, 1964, when agents found the bodies buried beneath an earthen dam.

The state refused to prosecute. Federal authorities instead tried Posey and 17 others on conspiracy charges in 1967. No one was charged with murder in the case until Killen was indicted in 2005.

Although the Justice Department is examining more than 100 killings from the civil rights era, it isn't looking at the case dubbed Mississippi Burning - despite the fact six suspects still are living in Mississippi.

Former FBI Agent Jay Cochran, who investigated the killings, said the case should be reopened: "There are two or three others who need to be prosecuted."

In his initial statement to state investigators on April 5, 2000, Posey insisted he didn't take part in the killings and had gone to prison for something he didn't do. Posey was among seven men who served several years in prison on federal conspiracy charges.

Posey told investigators there were "a lot of persons involved in the murders that did not go to jail." He would not name those people.

Two months later, his story changed. Admitting his involvement in the killings, he told Mississippi authorities he contacted Killen, who helped orchestrate the trio's killings. Posey also said he was among those who pursued the trio that night, was there when they were killed and helped haul their bodies to the dam to bury them.

When contacted for comment, Posey's wife answered the phone. "He wouldn't be interested in talking to you," she said.

The newspaper also has tracked down three potential new witnesses, including a former FBI agent who said Posey admitted he was a guard during the Klan's executions of the men.

The FBI identified more than 20 men as taking part in the slayings. In 1967, Posey and six others were convicted, but 11 others walked, including Killen.

Killen, 82, of Union was convicted in 2005 of three counts of manslaughter. He is in Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County serving a 60-year sentence.

State prosecutors can't use Posey's statement because they agreed not to.

Attorney General Jim Hood said Posey never would sign the statement, nor would he testify against Killen.

But what Posey said wouldn't be barred from federal court if federal authorities could pursue a case, said former state and federal prosecutor Patricia Bennett, a professor at Mississippi College School of Law. "And even if there was a state prosecution, authorities may be able to develop other evidence and not use that particular statement."

In an interview with The Clarion-Ledger, former FBI agent Robert Butler recalled arresting Posey on Dec. 4, 1964, at his Phillips 66 service station in Williamsville. Butler said Posey told him, "I was involved, but I was on guard duty at the perimeter.' "

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Cochran, who helped successfully prosecute Bobby Cherry in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, said the statement attributed to Posey "sounds like a confession to being an accomplice."

Under the law, being a lookout while a store is being robbed is no different from robbing the store, said Cochran, now a professor at Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham. "It means you're watching to make sure no one interferes with what's going on, which is obviously a crime and you know it's a crime."

According to a statement he gave state investigators before he died in 2001, Price said that after he jailed the civil rights workers the afternoon of June 21, 1964, he traveled to talk with highway patrolmen. He said one of them suggested beating up the trio and possibly mentioned Killen's name.

Price said he then drove to see Posey, then 28, at his service station.

Listening in

According to information found in the FBI files, sitting in the back seat of Price's patrol car that day were Nellie McMillan and her 11-year-old cousin, Linda Johnson. Price may have assumed they didn't know English since they spoke Choctaw.

In interviews with The Clarion-Ledger, both women remembered seeing Price talk that day with Posey. McMillan pointed to Posey in a page of photographs and said, "That's the one at the service station."

McMillan explained Price was trying to find her then-husband, who was drunk. "We was trying to put him in jail," she said as she laughed.

Johnson recalled Price holding a piece of paper with names on it.

In his statement, Price said he told Posey of "his desire to contact Killen to get the boys beat up."

Price said that when Killen called him, he advised the preacher the civil rights workers were in jail.

According to Price's statement, Killen asked the deputy to keep the trio locked up "until he could get a group together, and he would take care of it from there."

After a last phone call from Killen, Price said he drove to Old Jolly's Car Lot, where he met Killen and others.

Price said Killen told the men gathered that Price would release the trio, that highway patrolmen would stop them and that they would be turned over to the "Lauderdale group" - Klansmen from Meridian.

Posey, in his statement, recalled being at the car lot, where he was told to "wait until the boys were released from jail."

The statements of Posey and Price, along with those of the late Horace Doyle Barnette and James Jordan, who admitted their involvement, differ slightly in the roles people played at different stages of the crime.

Killen also met with Klansmen waiting near the jail. According to Barnette, Killen said of the trio, "We have a place to bury them and a man to run the dozer to cover them up."

At 10 p.m., Price released the trio from jail and told them to get out of town as fast as they could.

All was going as planned until the highway patrolmen didn't stop the trio. Posey, in his statement, said when he talked to the patrolmen south on Mississippi 19 he was told "he was late, and the boys had already driven by."

According to Jordan, Posey told them to follow him, that Price would catch the civil rights workers. His statement goes on to say Price and others pursued the trio south on Mississippi 19 in a high-speed chase. Posey's car broke down, and Posey waved them on.

Price turned on his siren, and the station wagon came to a halt. He ordered the trio into his patrol car.

Jordan joined Price in the patrol car. When the station wagon pulled past Posey's broken-down Chevy, the wagon stopped, and Posey and another Klansman got in, following the others to Rock Cut Road.

Posey said all three were dead by the time he got to Price's car. He identified Jordan, Jerry Sharpe, Alton Wayne Roberts and Barnette - all now dead - as being among those present at the murder scene, but he said he couldn't remember whether Jimmy Arledge and Jimmie Snowden - both still alive - were there.

According to Barnette, Arledge picked up Posey in the station wagon. Barnette also had Roberts, who was identified as a gunman, in that car, which if true, means Posey arrived before any shooting took place.

In his 1964 confession to the FBI, Jordan said he saw Posey at the murder scene, carrying a pistol and said Posey was the one who urged them to load the bodies in the wagon to be taken "to the spot." After the bodies were loaded, Jordan said, Posey told everyone to "follow me. We'll go the back way."

Posey, in his statement, told authorities Jordan was the one who remarked, "They had a dozer and to go to (Olen) Burrage's pond."

"Upon arrival, a gate was opened for access to the dam area of Burrage's property," Posey said. "The station wagon was driven to the dam, and the three bodies were unloaded."

Posey, who denied he ever belonged to the Klan, gave few other details, but Jordan said Posey emerged from the wagon and said he was glad to be out because the vehicle smelled like a "n----- hole."

Jordan, in his statement, also said Posey then asked where the bulldozer operator was.

Secrecy

Barnette told the FBI he and Arledge followed Burrage and another man to Burrage's garage. (Burrage not only owned the property where the bodies were buried but also was quoted by an FBI informant as saying about the "invading" civil rights workers: "Hell, I've got a dam that'll hold a hundred of them.")

Barnette said Burrage filled a glass gallon jug with gasoline to burn the station wagon and then took one of a diesel truck, saying, "I will use this to pick you up. No one will suspect a truck on the road this time at night."

Jordan said when they drove back down Mississippi 19, they spotted Posey's car. Jordan said Posey got out and said he didn't "need any help, that we had done a good job."

After Barnette and other Klansmen drove to Philadelphia, they were met by Sheriff Lawrence Rainey, who Barnette said told them, "I'll kill anyone who talks, even if it was my own brother."

When he met with the FBI later, Jordan told agents it appeared to him Killen and Posey planned the killings.

Philip Dray, co-author of We Are Not Afraid: The Story of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney and the Civil Rights Campaign for Mississippi, said the evidence against Posey and Burrage "seems pretty damning."